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Cryptids and Myths Wiki:Project CryptoResources/Patagonian sloth/"Does the Gigantic Mylodon Still Live in South America?," The Sphere (20 October 1900)
74 THE SPHERE [OCTOBER 20, 1900 THE CAVE AT CONSUELO COVE. X MARKS THE SPOT WHERE THE FIRST PIECE OF SKIN WAS FOUND In the room just behind the main starcase of the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, there is an unpretentious looking glass case bearing the following label:— REMAINS OF A LARGE GROUND SLOTH AND ASSOCIATED MAMMALS, FROM A CAVERN IN SOUTHERN PATAGONIA Lent by Dr. F. P. MORENO, Corres. Memb. Zool. Soc.; Director La Plata Museum The case fails to attract public attention, although its contents are undoubtedly the most interesting which the museum possesses at the present moment. There is an element of romantic suspense surrounding the piece of skin, the skull, and the other remains exposed to view which would surely hold the attention of the passer-by if he did but know wherein lay the romance. Yet one would think that a glance at the piece of skin which has its back covered with, as it were, a tesselated pavement of bone, would alone catch the wandering attention of the person merely "doing the museum," for it is like no skin which he has ever seen before. It is unlike the skin of any living mammal, with the exception of a certain family resemblance to the existing tree-climbing sloths and ant-eaters of South America. But these modern sloth creatures are only the size of a dog—animals to which this hair, this skin, this skull, could not possibly belong. The smaller piece of skin evidently fitted round the neck of some large animal. The question before scientists is, what animal? Palæontologists, those who study the fossil remains of extinct animals, say that the bony armour of the hide resembles that of the giant sloths, a family of huge monsters ranging from 10 to 20 ft. from snout to tail. The conclusion is a startling one when it is recollected that the last of these giant vegetarians was supposed to have been dead and buried by nature in pleistocene formations thousands upon thousands of years ago. In every scientific handbook the giant sloth is catalogued as extinct, and in every museum his great fossilised skeleton is labelled as that of an extinct megatherium mylodon, scelidotherium, or grypotherium, according to the particular branch of the edentate or semi-toothless family to which he belongs. In the grounds of the Crystal Palace he can be seen among Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins' restorations of extinct monsters grasping a tree in the way which was peculiar to him. Yet here is this skull—the brain cavity of which is practically identical with a fossil grypotherium—with blood-stained tissue still adhering to it, and with undoubted evidence of having been cut from the animal's neck by man, a strange thing in an animal which was held to have become extinct before dawning manhood had learnt to make even a stone axe. And these skins, too, with their well-preserved greenish-brown hair, must have been protected by a miracle of fortunate conditions to preserve thus their perishable gelative; or is the alternative possible, that the skins have been comparatively recently—within this generation—cut from the neck and arm of a mylodon or grypotherium, and that one of these "prehistoric" brutes may yet be living? To judge of this it is necessary to state the strange surroundings in which the remains were found. In November, 1897, Dr. Moreno, Director of the La Plata Museum, was engaged in surveying the boundary line between Patagonia and Chili, in the district marked on the accompanying map. His work took him to Last Hope Inlet, which opens into the Pacific, and at a spot known as Consuelo Cove he saw hanging on a tree one of the pieces of skin already referred to. The little lumps of bone at once attracted his attention by their resemblance to the fossil ossicles of the mylodon, found in company with the fossil skeletons dug from the Pampas. The natives, who thought it was a cow's hide studded with pebbles, took him to the cave where the skin had been discovered two years before by some Argentine officers, who carried away a large portion. The cave THE DOTTED AREA INDICATES THE DISTRICT IN WHICH THE SEARCH FOR THE MYLODON IS BEING MADE was a large one hollowed out of conglomerate, but yielded only a few human bones to Dr. Moreno's hurried search. Dr. Nordenskjöld, the well-known naturalist, visited the cave shortly afterwards and found some claws and also took away a portion of the skin. It remained for Dr. Rudolph Hauthal, geologist of the La Plata Museum, to make later on a thorough search of the cave with marvellous results. After clearing away the surface layer of ashes and ordinary bones, and a layer of leaves containing llama bones, he came upon a stratum 3 ft/ thick composed mainly of brownish dust and mylodon droppings. Buried in this layer were the skull already referred to as now at South Kensington, some bones and hair, a few large pieces of the bone-studded hide (partly burnt), the skull of a man, and two awls made from the leg of a dog. The bones also of an extinct form of horse and an extinct species of cat as big as a modern Bengal tiger were found. The hair of one piece of skin also had evidently been partly stripped of its hair by means of blunt tools. A great store of cut hay was also unearthed. All these remains were found in a large chamber between two artificial barriers of stone, the accumulations proving that the space must have been occupied by the problematical animals for some time. What is the inevitable inference from all these discoveries? It is nothing less than at some period the former owners of this cave succeeded in domesticating a species of giant ground sloth, probably the mylodon or the grypotherium. The walled-in space was the stables and the cut hay was the fodder, for it is abundantly evident that the animal ate cut hay. Did they keep this great beast, weighing perhaps 4,000 ib., for its milk? Did they breed neomylodon, as the scientists now call this species? It is perfectly clear from many facts that after being kept the animal had his head cut off by man, his hide stripped from him, and his flesh finally eaten. Does the neomylodon still live? That is a debatable question. Some scientists think that in a dry cave remains such as those now at South Kensington may be kept for thousands of years, while others maintain that the freshness of the hide and skull precludes their being older than fifty years. A small fragment of the hide has been boiled and has been found to be full of glue. So much interest has gathered round this question that an expedition has been sent out by Mr. C. Arthur Pearson to South America, and it is now nearing the region which holds the answer in question. It is a region little if ever frequented by the Indians on account of the lack of ordinary game. It is an uninhabited unexplored district of considerable extent. Mr. Hesketh Pritchard, leader of the expedition, with Mr. J. B. Scrivenor as second in command, intends to strike straight across from Santa Cruz to the lakes and explore all the country which surrounds them. He carries a sectional boat for use on the lakes. The party consists of four whites and a number of bearers. Just before leaving England last August Mr. Pritchard's party was joined by a traveller who showed good evidence that he knew of very recent tracks of the now hunted neomylodon. Whether the party will capture him in the act of tearing up a tree in the manner of his ancestors or will first sight one being milked by a Tehuelche Indian, only the return of the expedition can say. In any case it is bound to be extremely fruitful in scientific discovery. PERCY HOME THE CAVE AT CONSUELO COVE, LAST HOPE INLET The stables and the positions where some of the remains were found are drawn from the ground plan made by Dr. Rudolph Hauthal Category:Project CryptoResources Category:Project CryptoResources/Patagonian ground sloth